Crew Looking For Ways Around Blackouts

At a summit with the team’s supporters, Crew president Mark McCullers said the Crew is still
looking for ways to get around the blackout deal as part of its new television contract with Time
Warner Cable SportsChannel, sources who attended the event have told
The Dispatch.

The annual event, which is closed to the media, saw McCullers joined with investor-operator
Anthony Precourt and coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter to engage in a question-and-answer
session at Crew Stadium. Among the topics brought up was the team’s new broadcast deal,
which has limited game broadcasts to fans who subscribe to Time Warner Cable.
Fans who have access to Time Warner but choose a different cable provider and live within a 75-mile
radius of Crew Stadium will have games blacked out on Direct Kick and MLS Live.

When he discussed the deal Monday afternoon, McCullers told
The Dispatch that the Crew was looking for ways to address the contract it had signed.

“We’ve signed the contract under those terms,” he said. “We are working to try to gain greater
access for our fans, and we’re going to continue to. We think the distribution is going to increase
under a couple of scenarios in the future, and really that is what this is all about: positioning
ourselves for the future to have a quality television broadcast, quality television programming
because we think that distribution is going to be increased. If you look at what’s happened in
L.A., Time Warner Cable (SportsNet) in L.A. is widely distributed. Now there’s no promises, but it’s
reasonable to expect that with Comcast’s acquisition that there’s going to be some desire to try
to continue to build this property, and we’re the first step in that. We’re the priority in that.
We’re the lynchpin in that. We’re looking forward to that.

“We’re speculating somewhat, but we think that ultimately there’s going to be more national
television opportunity for the Crew in the future. We think there are some things that are going to
increase the distribution and the access, but we also have a vision for our television property and
what a professional sports franchise needs to have in order to increase the value. That was the
opportunity for us right now. We felt the need to take advantage of that.”

When he spoke with supporters this evening, McCullers said the club is looking to “rectify” the
situation and said the club is examining all of its options.

According to McCullers, the Crew opened negotiations by asking for no blackout. Time Warner
wanted to retain the blackout rules in effect for the team’s prior deal with Fox Sports Ohio, which
was the entire state, and the two sides settled on the 75-mile radius. The fact that Fox Sports
Ohio had a much larger blackout region but caused no such turmoil among the fans owes to that
network’s reach compared to Time Warner Cable SportsChannel.

So how could the Crew make its television programming more available to its fans?

“Really I can’t (explain) at this point,” McCullers said. “The thing I would say is that we’ve
heard our fans loud and clear. We knew that this was going to be an issue and we’re working to see
if there’s things we can do to try and resolve it and we’ll continue to do so.”